They HAD a secret #2

Two years ago the assistant I.T. Director was let go for sending an email complaint about his boss to town manager Larry Shaffer, also copied to the entire Select Board.

I filed a public documents request for said dispatch; the town manger turned me down citing Exemption C, the most often used excuse: "Personnel and medical files or information; also any other materials or data relating to a specifically named individual, the disclosure of which may constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy."

But in late February I requested any and all "separation, severance, transition, or settlement agreements made since January 1, 2005 between the town of Amherst and their employee's that include compensation, benefits, or other payments worth more than $5,000."

So here it is: Just another case of an employee who suddenly disappears (with $25-K in hand)
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A Gazette reporter called yesterday to interview me about the original post concerning the town manager's sudden retirement with a $62-K going away present and his, errr, administrative assistant also disappearing that same day with a $22-K payday after only 3-and-a-half years employment with the town.

He wanted to know "why the people should care?" Good question. Not sure I answered well enough for him and even if so it may never see the light of print anyway, so I will answer it again here.

Of the 13 individuals covered under these agreement more than half of them are simply routine retirements or early retirements. But because they are all kept secret, it casts a shadow on those that are routine, as though they did something wrong.

When the town attorney informed the town manager he had to give up the documents, Mr. Musante requested another week to contact the former employees via snail mail to inform them that someone had been given their legal agreements.

And I'm sure some of them--even those who should not be--started to get nervous.

The highest payout ($44,000) was actually the most normal in that it was a very-high ranking employee with over thirty years of distinguished service. That settlement included unused vacation pay, sick time, personal days, longevity pay, etc.

Another woman who had left the same position Ms. "Jane Doe" occupied (administrative assistant to the town manager--and I'm told by multiple sources did a much better job) was not on the settlement list, because she received no money. Since she voluntarily resigned her town position for a better job at Amherst College, you would expect no such settlement.

So then why did "Jane Doe" get paid $22-K when she "voluntarily" resigned ten months later?

If the former town manager Larry Shaffer had used $22-K out of his $25-K going away present, then I would have not pursued this case so vigorously. But since it was all funded with tax dollars, I honestly believe the people have a right to know.

Just another WikiLeaks document dump...

So once again I have set my blogger controls to automatically publish at 2:30 this afternoon another chapter from my recent acquisition of 82 pages of legal documents via Public Documents Law concerning secret settlement agreements with 13 town employees over the past five years.

No, I'm not afraid town officials will have me terminated with extreme prejudice between now and then or anything, it's just that even though I now live a cyber-life I still have ink in my veins. And nothing is more motivating than a drop-dead deadline.

No foolin'

Town Hall in a storm 4/1/2011

As some of you may have noticed by now I have enabled "comment moderation" to better police reader comments. Since I have always considered this hyperlocal website a journalistic endeavor, I will now treat comments somewhat in same way a newspaper treats 'Letters To The Editor'--although far less formerly of course.

Yes I'm a passionate defender of the First Amendment, but if you actually read that precious declaration it only applies to government censorship--not private policing.

So what does that mean? Over four years I have published (or I should say readers have published) over 15,000 comments. In that time I have only deleted maybe a dozen and I'm tempted to fall back on the Supreme Court Justice who once said of porn, "I don't know how to describe it but I know it when I see it."

Occasionally along the way I would remind readers that I only delete spam, accidental double posting, libelous rants, and any use of the C-word or N-word. I open up comments (and that will continue) to anonymous postings because I honestly believe--especially now after watching the bullying Catherine Sanderson received over the past couple years--that there is an inherent risk in speaking truth to power; and many people, understandably, do now wish to lose their jobs, have their children shunned or risk the wrath of their neighbors.

Crude comments--foul language, personal attacks, lousy attempts at satire/sarcasm will, most likely, no longer be tolerated. If, however, you push the envelope with a comment and sign your name it will increase the odds for publication.

And no, just because I allow a comment to appear does not mean that I even remotely agree with it.

Yes, maybe that will decrease somewhat the interest in coming here--hopefully among trolls--but it's not like I'm getting paid by the hit. I watched very carefully (being the open transparent person she is, Ms. Sanderson has an "open" sitemeter) what happened on her School Committee blog last year when she enabled comment moderation:

A decrease of about 20% in overall traffic in the first month or two, but then it seemed to return to "normal".

My journalism ethics/law professor (and she is W-A-Y smarter and more experienced than I) believes that enabling comments actually makes me more vulnerable to litigation, not less; because if something legally actionable does get published, obviously I approved it to appear.

Bring 'em on!

When Media platforms collide

What a fascinating week in All Things Journalism. No, I'm not referring to the "China Syndrome' taking place in Japan, also a red hot story at the moment, but to our own local/national/international nuclear meltdown story: The ongoing Phoebe Prince suicide tragedy in South Hadley now, amazingly, 14 months old. A blockbuster story with bionic legs it seems.

And this most recent chapter started innocently enough on Thursday morning with a positive story, otherwise known as a puff piece, in the Springfield Republican's cyber entity Masslive concerning a local South Hadley High School teacher attending an anti-bullying conference at the White House, an article written by intern Rosie Walunas, a journalism student on assignment for a UMass academic project under the direction of veteran print-journalist-turned-professor-of-digital-journalism, Steve Fox.

Well it turns out that particular local South Hadley High School teacher has been acting as a PR flack for the school that pays her salary pretty much from day one, and some have argued that she "blamed the victim" as a means to absolve the school, students, administrators, teachers or town.

And she had a "fashion" blog (now deleted) where she gushed about the upcoming Washington D.C. trip...a blog that I--not know for my fashion sense of course--found to be something out of a Saturday Night Live skit, including a questionably risque photo of her posing in a slinky outfit against an industrial locker, the kind you might find in a High School locker room. Yikes!

The online response--comments posted to the Masslive article, the South Hadley Forum and on a local blog that has relentlessly followed the tragedy with a microscope--came fast and furious, but even the mainstream media (if you consider MSNBC main) scooped everyone via an interview with Jeremy Prince where he sadly pointed out his family's dismay with A) not being informed of the B-I-G White House PR event and B) the "disgusting" choice of having THAT particular teacher attend and present at the conference.

Ms. Walunas demonstrated her digital upbringing by quickly responding with a follow up story in the Republican (Friday) laying out the now escalating controversy--and even mentioned the caustic Internet responses from comments posted to her original story and on the pernicious blogosphere.

By then savvy Republican editors must have figured out this was a major story and veteran reporter Fred Contrada assumed the helm with his further exploration of this epic PR backfire, splashed on the front page (Saturday) with the entire angle of the story highlighting the "shock and disgust" felt by the Prince family.

Meanwhile on Friday the South Hadley Town Reminder (a free weekly) and Daily Hampshire Gazette published overly positive front page stories concerning the anti bullying conference at the White House without any mention of the controversy. On Saturday, the Gazette catches up with the debacle by regurgitating the heartbreaking MSNBC interview with Phoebe's dad.

And this morning an Irish newspaper--The Sunday Independent-- picked up the side story (prominently decried in cyberspace) that South Hadley High School students are coming to Ireland for a visit (led by the now controversial teacher) in a few weeks with the headline giving you a distinct clue what they think about it: "Shock as tragic Phoebe's school plans Irish trip."

Their reception will probably be similar to that any fool would get strolling into an Irish pub on St. Patty's Day dressed entirely in orange and requesting a spot of tea.

Expanding my audience

UPDATE: 9:35 AM

So my radio debut went well if I do say so myself. As usual, the only problem is not enough time or bandwidth to properly discuss "All things Amherst." I had planned to highlight four hot button issues (any one of which could end up being the issue of the year) and really only managed to work in two of them: the impending Superintendent search decision and the somewhat intertwined School Committee race between upstart incumbent Catherine Sanderson and newcomer Katherine Appy.

Did not have the time to touch on the other two, Umass related, issues: Blockading Lincoln Avenue access to Umass for the first time in 150 years; and the Gateway Project, an ambitious significant infrastructure upgrade dressing up the main entryway to Umass formerly stained by the slummy presence of Frat Row.

Oh well, there's always next week.
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ORIGINAL POST: Wednesday night
So tomorrow morning I start my weekly gig at WHMP radio with a 7:40 AM eight minute segment on Chris Collins Morning News broadcast talking about "All things Amherst." I've always loved radio because of the immediacy--kind of like the Internet.

Fifty years ago my mother routinely set the clock radio alarm to WHMP during school days to rouse us in the morning (and during the winter hoping for a school closing announcement, as she was a public school teacher in Easthampton.)

So I would almost always awaken to the sound of the legendary newsman with a golden voice, Ron Hall.

I shot an arrow into the air...

By the time the Challenger vaporized in real time before millions of stunned viewers 25 years ago I was already an avowed news junkie and I was auditing a course taught by the legendary Howard Ziff, founder of the highly regarded Umass journalism program.

Coincidentally enough he had scheduled the editor of the Concord Monitor, Christa McAuliffe's hometown newspaper, to be a guest lecturer that semester and he appeared only weeks after the disaster.

I asked him what he would have done if he absolutely knew beyond a shadow of a doubt the Challenger would explode that morning but had no corroboration. He looked me directly in the eye and said (with his voice somewhat trembling) he would have done "Anything--absolutely anything--to get the word out, including standing in town center naked with a warning tattooed to my butt."

Of course in 1986 the Internet was strictly a niche work area for nerdy scientists plus the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, was not even born. Still, the viral spread of news about the stunning disaster was nothing short of amazing. Within an hour 85% of Americans had heard about it and most of them ran to their televisions to watch it...over and over again.

I knew one of the astronauts, Ron McNair--a traditional style black belt who fought in local karate tournaments in the Boston area even though NASA disapproved. And my only verbal interaction with him after we fought at Rocky DiRico's tournament was to tell him how cool I considered it that he still did what he loved even though it made his bosses nervous.

He said something to the effect that he also loved equally being an astronaut, and could not conceive of giving up either. Christa McAuliffe loved being a teacher. Ironically in a preflight interview she had said it would be cool to go from teaching history to making it.

I have often wondered if the Power of the Web had been harnessed prior to that ill-fated flight if it could have made the life or death difference? Perhaps a word of warning sounded by an engineer (on his personal blog) who helped design the o-rings and knew they were not safe in sub freezing temperatures would have brought further pressure to bear on bureaucrats who had put aside their engineer hats in favor of their manager ones.

But now I'm not so sure. Only nine months ago the Deepwater Horizon, a super-expensive, pride of American technology oil platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico killing 11 workers and creating the worst environmental disaster in history. There too engineers put aside ethics in favor of expediency and the bottom line.

As Pete Seeger observed in a song so very long ago: "When will they ever learn?"



1/28/86

Gatekeepers hold back the horror

It's been almost a week since the deleterious death video was shown to a captive jury in the manslaughter trial of former Pelham police chief Ed Fleury--an accidental machine gun death where of an 8-year-child's head ended up on the wrong end of the gun.

And thus far not a single local, regional or national media outlet has shown the entire video. Thank God for small favors. In fact, yesterday Judge Velis did not even allow the prosecutor to replay it while a State Police "expert" was testifying about the micro Uzi.

One juror has already been dismissed and we will not know why until the trial is over, but it seems obvious since she was crying to the judge that the burden of having watched the video and hearing the heartrending testimony was simply too much for her.

As would the ghoulish video be for many people if released for mass distribution. Unfortunately something like that falls into the category of "know it when you see it"--but by then it's too late.

A hard to resist Siren Song, better left unseen.

A Prize Lecture

Two time Pulitzer Prize winner Gene Weingarten spoke this evening at the Umass Student Union to a good sized crowd of perhaps 125, mostly students, almost all of whom will find it much harder to follow the same path Weingarten used to win that most coveted award in journalism, namely, finding a job writing or editing for a newspaper.

Weingarten doesn't normally do the speaking circuit but came as a favor to old print buddy, and current acting director of the Umass Journalism program Maddie Blais, herself a Pulitzer Prize winner.

His first Pulitzer in 2008 came for an event he staged in the Washington Metro where he observed, recorded and interpreted how a busy crowd on their way to work reacted (or didn't) to the virtuoso performance of violinist Joshua Bell, dressed like a common street musician playing for food.

I guess if he really wanted to get a reaction he should used The Flying Wallendas.

The second Pulitzer coming this year, I find far more impressive and something (unlike staging a street theatre event) I could never do: interview 13 parents who lost a child because they had left them in the car on a hot day.

His harrowing piece, aptly titled "Fatal Distraction", won over the Pulitzer Prize Committee but not so much the online commenters who reacted to the Washington Post feature article. Weingarten reported that about two-thirds of them were angry with him for portraying the parents in a sympathetic light rather than pillorying them.

In spite of technical problems with the overhead projector Weingarten kept the crowds interest, telling stories--mostly funny--of days gone by.

Maddie Blais does the intro.

The Daily Collegian reports

Troubles and transparency

So the venerable Daily Hampshire Gazette had an interesting way of demonstrating dire financial conditions--besides the anemic page count--on today's Front Page, with an article about Northampton's First Night finding another sugar daddy to replace the $5,000 cash donation nixed by a "major sponsor" after 25 years of support.

Of course they were smart enough to hold off until paragraph three before admitting that major sponsor was none other than the Daily Hampshire Gazette. Although they will continue to promote the New Year's Eve celebration event on their pages (like they did today) and publish a First Night supplement and the event's program, but a sizable chunk of cash is no more.

As a former longtime small business owner I appreciate how tough it is to accommodate all the hand outs requested by worthy agencies (I would get roughly three per week); and product is a lot easier to donate than cash.

To pitch their product to Valley businesses, a generation of Gazette ad reps chanted the mantra "advertising doesn't cost, it pays." Now the shoe is on the other foot, looking withered and worn.

Glad it was the before shot

So our journalism ethics discussion this week covered graphic photos--and we all know how viseral they can be.

According to my Prof: "Finally, journalists must take great care with the use of graphic photos.We must be courageous enough to use them when the message they send is important, but smart enough not to use them to shock or for their sensational value. Graphic photos that illustrate the consequences of government policy are often used even if they might offend."

And to drive home the point her discussion question asked, "Can you think of a recent photo or video that you found disturbing or offensive? Was there a good reason to run it, even at the risk of offending people?"

I used as an example when the Gazette two years ago put an AP photo on page one of a small child's lifeless hand sticking up out of the rubble clutching a pen--which more than graphically illustrated the damage the earthquake inflicted on China's Sichuan province where schools, because of shoddy construction, collapsed like a house of cards.

Today's AP photo graphically illustrates the government policy in Iraq for animal control. No question about that. My only question is, did they have to use such a cute dog?

My previous complaint

Let Freedom Ring

Today's Springfield Sunday Republican is a perfect example of the things print MSM does right even in this instant, always on Internet age: Tailoring articles to the moment--with the moment of course being the celebration of our freedom, the birth of our great nation.

Page one above the fold (written by a Managing Editor) featured a patriotic, advance teaser for the Barnes Air National Guard air show coming up in August and on the sports front break page a typical "give 'em Hell" column from outdoor editor Frank Sousa colorfully illustrating an incident from his Harry Truman like past where he kicks a protester in the ass for wearing an American flag on their butt.

Since I once got into it with Mr. Sousa 25 years ago on the Kennedy-Thurmond mailorder martial arts weapons bill and he still buys ink by the barrel, all I'll say is my journalism professor would probably not recommend a physical reaction to folks exercising their First Amendment rights, but I can't say I disagree with his sentiments.

I remember a still popular local TV news anchor once telling me he almost covered the flag burning incident at Amherst College five weeks after 9/11, but something came up at the last minute. A few Hampshire College kids and their professor crashed that patriotic rally and threw a flag on the ground and stomped on it while chanting "this flag doesn't represent us" as another protester (all dressed in black) ignited a American flag--with that searing photo appearing on the front page of the Boston Globe.

He said he would have put down his microphone and punched one of them. Again, can't say I disagree with his sentiments--just, maybe, the methods.

And not to be left out--as Amherst seldom is--another article later about the District Attorney turning over to the Attorney General the "investigation" into blogging by Amherst School Committee member Catherine Sanderson and how it could--they hope--violate the Open Meeting Law (dare I dub this "bloggergate"?)

But with the ACLU declaring OML--even if it did apply--trumped by the First Amendment, that most basic of American rights we celebrate today, I don't think Ms. Sanderson's husband will have to learn how to bake a cake with a hack saw hidden within.

Journalism Ethics #3

A modern day jet cockpit is a sea of dials, switches, and lights...time consuming to interpret individually while a plane is in flight. A good pilot knows how to efficiently scan, panning the scene, looking only for something out of the ordinary--like a flashing red light.

So it should be with Internet comments, in a reverse sort of way. Unfortunately, the routine is for rude, obnoxious, racially insensitive trolls to hide behind anonymity and spew their hatred for whatever joy it seems to bring them.

Like a good pilot scanning their complicated controls, casual readers should simply ignore those comments; the ones that should garner attention are thoughtful, add to the debate or bring up new and valuable information that demonstrates the writer has first hand knowledge about the events in the article. And, yes, those are often very few and very far between.

" The comments sections on many general-interest news sites lack both the carrot and the stick for encouraging responsible behavior. The carrot is the cohesion of a group you don’t want to disappoint, like Yoshimi25’s Front Burner community. The stick is the shame associated with having your real name publicly attached to embarrassing behavior. Without these two levers, the social contract breaks down." ('Inside the mind of the Anon online poster'. Neil Swidey, Boston Globe)

The Internet has revolutionized the dissemination of news and entertainment; now anyone anywhere in the world can instantly upload an observation, photo, video or full fledged novel for all to see.

"In the old days, we really were the gatekeepers, and if we said we aren't going to say the names of rape victims..we could make that come true. Well, newspaper editors can't do that anymore. We have to exist in a broader, more democratized, sort of rougher edged and less neat and controlled world." (Geneva Overholser, AJR 'Going Public')

Sure the Internet is still a tad rough and tumble, but when you attend an R-rated movie you should know what your getting into and not complain later about the site of a naked body or a little blood and gore. And of course, Internet news sites and blogs can be more like an NC-17 rating.

"The right to free speech and the unfettered practice of free speech are not the same. In a way we are all Robert Cohen ("F_ck the Draft") at Sunday dinner, with legal rights that may have to yield to practical, everyday restrictions on the expression." (Woo, Essay #3)

William Woo makes the reasonable point that just because you can wear a jacket in public with a vulgar word under the banner of free speech doesn't mean your grandmother has to put up with it at a family dinner. Fair enough.

But then, is grandma also going to ban all political talk--no matter how civil--at the dinner table? It's a very fine line. I let it all hang out on 'Only in Amherst' (my posts and comments), allowing the readers to decide what to consume and what not to waste time on.

After all, the First Amendment protects free speech of citizens from government suppression. So if grandma wants to institute stern controls at her house on Sunday she can, or if a privately owned newspaper industry wants to ban Anon comments on their news websites, they most certainly can.

"But it’s the wrong move, the proverbial rocket launcher employed against a housefly. The collateral damage it would bring — a contrived quieting and flattening of the debate, and a closing off of the sorts of scoops and expansive discussions enabled by anonymous commenting — wouldn’t be worth it." ('Freedom of Screech', Jesse Singal, Boston Globe)

Catherine Sanderson, an elected Amherst School Committee member with a refreshing attitude about transparency, recently instituted "comment moderation" on her blog. She posts comments as long as they are somewhat civil, on topic and free of personal attacks on private citizens. However, she still allows Anonymous comments as long as they meet those minimum requirements:

"The key thing is that there are people who WANT to share their thoughts, but can't do so if they will be identified. This includes parents who worry their kid will experience a negative outcome if they criticize the schools, and teachers who worry that their comments will create negative consequences for them if they criticize the schools/their colleagues/parents. I believe those voices are really important to have, and thus I've continued to allow anonymous posters."(Catherine Sanderson, 'Only in Amherst' blog Comment)

On my blog I have chosen to grin and bear abusive Anon comments, but never resist the opportunity to point out how cowardly the mechanism is when relied upon simply to heap abuse. I only delete spam, double posted comments (delete one), libel (I know it when I see it) or certain words that I think should be forever banned from the lexicon of human language: C-word, N-word, but since the Supreme Court has said the F-word is okay, I grudgingly accept it.

What surprised me about the current "No Comment" American Journal Review editorial ( "It's time for news sites to stop allowing anonymous online comments.") is that the stunningly obvious concern over tips from sources who need the protection afforded by a cloak of anonymity was completely ignored.

Recently the Buffalo News (after only allowing comments for just over a year) joined the "G-rated" minority of papers banning all Anon comments from their website. The editor, obviously easily offended, explains:

"Quickly, though, the practice degenerated into something significantly less lofty. Particularly on stories about inner-city crime — but not only on those stories — reader comments can be racist and ugly. In fact, we’ve been shocked at how seemingly routine stories can elicit comments that veer off into offensive territory." (Margaret Sullivan, Buffalo News, 'Seeking a return to civility in online comments'.)

A hyperlocal news site in their readership territory quickly responded:

"While it's disappointing that The News is running away from this issue, it's not at all surprising. The paper has been slow to adapt to the changing media landscape as management continues to hope the world goes back to 1975. They want the internet to go away, but it won't." (Buffalo Rising, 'Buffalo News tells the internet to go away'.)

The real world can be ugly indeed. Journalism is supposed to hold up a mirror to reflect that. And yeah, sometimes the language can be a tad salty.

According to recovered flight data recorders, pilots about to die tend to exclaim the word "shit!" As stunned NY firefighters watched the first plane impale the North Tower on the morning of 9/11, their instant reaction was "Holy shit!"..."Holy shit!"

Holy shit indeed!

Taking "news" seriously (Yes folks, this is parody)

So you gotta love the sendoff moments of the sendoff edition of "Student News", not affiliated with the Amherst Regional High School except all the major players involved attend.

Josh does the Walter Cronkite/Edward R. Murrow rolling up of the sleeves, loosening of the tie (although he probably could have gone one step further by repeatedly removing and replacing his glasses or simply fired up a camel cigarette), and then the two co-anchors do the "chicken dance."

Yes indeed, the future of journalism is in such good hands.

Journalism Ethics #2

Just as truth is the ultimate defense in a libel case its pursuit provides a fantastic fuel that should drive a journalist, a sacred core value immune from external coercion, greed, or delusions of grandeur. But in the rush to be first in this new 24/7 newscycle brought on by the instantaneous Internet the whole truth is often partially obscured, yet the publish button is still clicked.

For me the most important founding principal of the online news association under 'Seek Truth and Report It' was the last (the reverse of a reverse pyramid is a pyramid): "Recognize a special obligation to ensure that the public's business is conducted in the open and that government records are open to inspection."

Because government oftentimes purposely use its considerable power to keep the populace uninformed, it is the job of the journalist to know by heart the Open Meeting Law and Public Documents Law the two best weapons for keeping government honest.

About 15 years ago when I was writing columns for the Amherst Bulletin an anonymous (older) woman caller tipped me that "something was wrong out at the Cherry Hill Golf Course." She said a popular young female summer worker just suddenly disappeared and the other employees refused to talk about it.

I hit the town manager with a public documents request for a list of seasonal employees at the start of the season and a current list (it was mid-summer) and any letters of resignation for the one name that may not show up as currently still employed.

He refused on the grounds of the "privacy exemption" the most frequently invoked (out of a handful of allowed exemptions) by government officials. I appealed and Alan Cote the Secretary of Public Records agreed with me that because the Golf Course is municipally owned and tax supported any documents related to employment are public.

But then they tried to withhold them because they were of a "sensitive nature." Again the State agreed with me and said the documents could be redacted to protect the young woman but they still had to turn them over.

Turns out the Golf Course manager, Dan Engstrom (who was married at the time) engaged in "banter" of a sexual nature with the young woman employee, making crude suggestive remarks about her body and it even escalated to where he physically touched her.

The towns "Human Rights Director" investigated (it was her redacted report they grudgingly turned over) and found him guilty. The woman was paid a full season compensation and then some (just under $10,000) and Mr.Engstrom was giving one month leave with pay.

Of course the reason town officials wanted to keep it secret is because the golf course superintendent would have been hard to replace (especially mid-season) if fired for engaging in the behavior that in a PC town like Amherst would almost guarantee dismissal if word got out to the general public.

About ten years later I requested a season pass customer list with names and addresses to ascertain how many patrons are actually from Amherst which heavily subsidizes the operation of the golf course with town tax money. Town officials refused saying it was a violation of individuals privacy. The state agreed with me and the list demonstrated that over the half the patrons lived outside Amherst.

About five years ago I received a call from Cindy Pepyne, investigator at the District Attorney's office, saying the Springfield Republican wanted from their office a short list of people who had successfully used Public Documents and Open Meeting Law so the paper could request they write a guest column during "Sunshine Week."

The DAs office refused to comply because the names (as whistleblowers) were exempt from public documents. But the DAs office called the people directly and informed them about the idea with contact information for the newspaper editor; and I of course returned the call and wrote a guest column on the matter for the Springfield Republican--and they did note it odd that the DAs office charged with enforcing Sunshine Laws were themselves exempt.
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Minimize harm is kind of like the military attempting to neutralize only combatants while minimizing "collateral damage" to innocent civilians. And that is always a lot harder than just ordering a B52 "carpet bombing" of an entire area and returning it to the stone age.

Just as an uncaring journalist can name innocent civilians related to the target of their investigation and by tying them to a negative story damage their reputations. Sometimes it is unavoidably as when the media exposes a national politician like John Edwards cheating on his cancer suffering wife, and unless you are a columnist you cannot be overly sympathetic but can still skip some of the more lurid details bound to bring pain to the immediate family.

Three months ago Catherine Sanderson and I received an anonymous three-page letter in the mail from a school employee lamenting "the coup" that had just brought down rookie Superintendent Alberto Rodriguez.

The letter was filled with enough seasoned personal observations--many of them about administrators who are public figures--to indicate the writer was indeed an insider but also contained information about some people who would be considered private, one of them a young child.

I redacted the names of almost everybody and published it in its entirety. A few people figured out their own names and were furious, but interestingly most of them were public figures where I probably did not have to redact their names in the first place.
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Under 'Act independently', my pick as number pick is of course: "Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable." I think for me it's a personal thing. I started martial arts training in 1972 the year of the "Olympic massacre" at Munich, where Israeli athletes (in a martial art like sport) were massacred simply because of their nationality and the same year as the Watergate break in where I first learned a President could lie.

Like your first kiss, a media junkie will always remember their first 'Letter To The Editor'. Mine was to the Daily Hampshire Gazette in 1982 lamenting the Munich Massacre on the 10th anniversary (even in my early stages I knew the media loved anniversaries) and warning about the tremendous abuse of power exhibited by those zealots known as "terrorists," out for self styled glory and massive media attention, with the conscious of a great white shark.
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Under "Be Accountable"--like most bloggers who take their art seriously--I consider it job #1 for a journalist (and bloggers who take their art seriously are journalists!) to "expose unethical practices of journalists and the news media."

The profession should be able to police itself. Half of all doctors, lawyers or hairstylists graduated at the bottom half of their class. It's up to those who take their profession seriously (possibly those in the upper-half graduation levels) to police their own.

And the ubiquitous Internet is the perfect platform for that.

And the children shall lead...

So Amherst Regional High School 'Student News' sendoff off edition (the youngsters get the summer off) was unintentionally hilarious--as the cub reporters and "executive editors" once again ended up in hot water for publishing a less than ethical episode.

After getting pounded in the blogosphere for their rude, childish portrayal of School Committee member Catherine Sanderson--a stand up publicly elected town official who happens to run a very popular blog with ratings far greater than theirs--for a piece where they repeatedly spliced together Sanderson at a School Committee meeting subtly bobbing her head to music (superimposing a spotlight so you could not miss it) with an overdub of their musical choosing.

Hey, at least she was not falling asleep!

After the fallout (in journalism that kind of video is considered doctored deliberate distortion) you would think they learned their lesson. Not in Amherst, where obviously some grown up Wizards like to manipulate marionettes from behind the curtain; so the kids decided to take another shot.

This time they generously allowed Sanderson 40 minutes of unedited airtime, which she managed to fill without having to consult cue cards (unlike their "reporter"). Considering Student News is normally a half-hour show, pretty sweet. But then later, back at the Amherst taxpayer subsidized ACTV studio, the "Executive Producers" could not resist adding another 20 minutes of editorial follow up. An ambush where the prey was not even physically present to rebut.


Obviously at their tender age they have no firsthand experience with how committees and sub committees work. A sub committee is less than a quorum of the main committee and they can meet separately and talk as long as they want pretty much about anything they want providing, the meeting is open to the public and posted 48 hours in advance.

When Catherine explained that the Union 26 issue had been discussed in subcommittee extensively but only for 10 minutes or so total by the entire School Committee who voted unanimously to consult an attorney--that is certainly no "contradiction" (wherein they suggested she lied with the introductory comment, "even if Ms Sanderson misspoke").

That's why you have subcommittees! So they can hash out details and take up far less time of the full committee.

And as this clip shows Mr. Wolfsun--and, apparently, a committee of his teen aged peers--the venerable "High School Student Advisory Committee"--took tremendous offense at an offhand comment made by a paid education consultant regarding the wisdom of letting children evaluate their teachers, prompting laughter from the audience, mostly comprised of concerned parents of Middle School kids I would imagine.

Maybe Wolfsun should have just held his breath until he turned blue.

But somehow that supposed disrespect (and I agree with the professional consultant) gets blamed on Catherine Sanderson, who I assume was in the room at the time, yet Wolfsun offers no evidence whatsoever--like a video spliced to repeatedly replay the scene--that she joined in the "laughter". The old guilt by association, paint with a broad brush routine.

And in the interest of "full disclosure" Mr. Wolfsun should have mentioned that both he and "Associate Producer" Graham Churchill (son of now somewhat discredited former School Committee Chair Andy Churchill) both graduated from their local neighborhood Marks Meadow Elementary School, the smallest of four in Amherst now closed, mainly because of Catherine Sanderson's blog. A taxpayer savings of $850,000 annually, but met with bitter resistance by those with a vested interest.

Comment to Student News: If you are going to masquerade as journalists, may I recommend "Online Journalism Ethics: Traditions and Transitions" by Cecilia Friend and Jane Singer.

My General McChrystal moment

So eight years ago in the still dismal days running up to the first anniversary of 9/11, July 4 Parade Committee members joined forces with the American Legion to put on a one-year anniversary memorial service that would stand out anywhere in America. I of course was in charge of media relations.

My fellow Irish--equally family rooted in Amherst for 5 generation--friend Kevin Joy had fashioned a replica of the Twin Towers and Pentagon on a large flatbed. At first I thought/worried that somehow it would be kind of tacky turning a somber symbol into a parade float (it lead the July 4 Parade in 2002) but his artistic talent was such that it could not help but remind people of what we lost that day.

We actually initiated the ceremony on the eve of 9/11 when we held an "Irish wake" on the town common, parking the monument and illuminating it overnight with a powerful portable generator lighting system (the same ones used to illuminate Ground Zero at night for workers engaged in recovery operations) that the air wing commander of Barnes Air National Guard let us borrow.

People solemnly trudged in all night long to pay their respects.

At the break of dawn we ferried the float over to Northampton and had is slowly escorted on Rt. 9 at parade speed all the way from Sheldon Field back to Amherst town common escorted by Northampton, Hadley, Amherst and Umass public safety vehicles.

At around 8:40 AM the two hour ceremony started with speakers, but mainly I remember the ringing of church bells and brief moments of silence to mark those agonizing moments when the planes struck and those magnificent towers fell.

My main job was to get the word out so we could attract 3,000 people back to the Town Common that night to hold a candle (donated by Yankee Candle) where we had printed out all the names of the victims and gingerly attached them to each candle.

The media attention was impressive leading up to the day (considering every community in America was have a ceremony of some kind) The AP called me and said they were sending a reporter and photographer. The Boston Globe sent a reporter the day before for an extended interview and we gave her lots of our time.

Around 3:30 PM she asked if she could use my business office to finish up her story and tap the Internet to send it back to the newsroom, and I instantly agreed. Kevin and I were still busy making phone calls sending out faxes and desperately trying to make sure all the names were attached to the candles. In other words busy work, the kind that goes better with beer, but we did not have any beer.

The left leaning activist First Congregational Church in town center was also holding an event on the first anniversary having something to do with a labyrinth outlined in empty shoes with native American drummers, Buddhists and Muslims afterward sending the footware to Iraq.

Yeah, go figure. But it was still getting some media attention. I think their goal was to get 500 pairs donated on 9/11.

At one point while the reporter was still tap, tap, tapping away on her laptop in my small office and Kevin and I were bantering about that, while attaching stickers to candles, I said somewhat sarcastically, "Yeah, I'll see your 500 shoes and raise you 3,000 candles!"

Indeed nothing I EVER would have said on the record, and to this day it still sounds crass--but I was pretty wired and beyond tired at that moment.

The next morning that callous quote appears in the Boston Globe article front page Metro Section, ruining a heartfelt endeavor. I was crestfallen. Yes I said it, and no I did not tell the reporter that anything she hears in my office is "off the record." But she had stated the interviews were over and she was simply cranking out the copy.

But PT Barnum would have approved, because back then the Boston Globe was still considered the paper of record for the entire Northeast if not nation. And although the story was framed as a contest between our ceremony and the shoes-to-Iraq ceremony, the coldly efficient reporter still got everything else right.

That morning storm clouds and brisk winds dominated into the very late afternoon. A well known Amherst "peace activist" came up to me in the late morning and taunted me about the potential for high wind and rain (not great conditions for candlelight) saying we would be lucky to get "100 people to turn out" that night.

At the twilight's last gleaming, the skies cleared and the wind receded. We ended up with just over 2,000 somber citizens. Some took two candles to hold. I kept one that I will light next year on the 10th Anniversary of the saddest day for our country in my 55-old existence.

A Comment about 'No Comment'

My Journalism prof sent the class a link to the current American Journal Review editorial where the editor, Rem Rieder rants about Anon comments on news websites. The subheadline says it all: "It's time for news sites to stop allowing anonymous online comments."

Since the AJR doesn't allow Comments, I thought I'd try to do that Journalistic fair-and-balanced thing and talk about the other side--not that I'm overly fond of Cowardly Anon Nitwits.

First off, I can tell Mr. Rieder has led a sheltered life as the ONLY example he uses of a horrible Comment was this, and it was referring to a public official in--of all places--rough and tumble New Orleans:

"Theriot, just another Jefferson Parish politician thug mobster trained by his mentor..dressed up in a façade of respectability by a corrupt Louisiana Legislature."

Hmm...sounds like Mr. Theriot (who briefly filed a defamation suit against the paper over the Anon Comments published) has pretty thin skin as well.

My Irish mother taught me a long time ago that "sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me." Geeze, if he really thinks that one is so bad, I should send him some of the choice comments I've had hurled my way over the past three years here and for seven or eight years earlier on Masslive, the Springfield Republican website.

What I worry about most--and what the editor completely ignores--are folks who post Anonymously because they fear retaliation, as in losing their jobs (which we saw here in Amherst when the Town Manager fired an Information Technology employee for copying a job related letter of complaint to the entire Select Board.)

And no, "Whistleblower Protection" does not trickle down to a town level as it is a Federal Law that only protects Federal employees who blow the whistle on corruption.

Catherine Sanderson (you know--the School Committee blogger that five school committee Chairs would love for the District Attorney to shut down) defends Anon posts on her blog because she knows some of them come from "insider" employees who could lose their jobs, or parents worried administrators or teachers could retaliate against their kids.

Family comes first.


"No Comment" Editorial June/July American Journalism Review

Journalism's hope and power

Edward Kennedy closed his eulogy to brother Bobby with a variation of a George Bernard Shaw quote: "Some men see things as they are and ask why, I dream of things and say why not."

For me that sentient represents the power, nobility and awesome potential of Journalism. To see wrongs and expose them--but better yet, try to replace those wrongs with something right, while minimizing collateral damage. To make a difference, sometimes THE difference.

If you stand in Amherst town center at high-noon on the 4th of July and send up a flare, hardly anyone will notice. It will get lost in the bright background of a nice sunny summer day and even those who do see it will simply consider it a routine byproduct of a holiday celebration.

But if you trudge to that same spot during the coldest darkest days of February in late afternoon and launch that same pyrotechnic anybody in the center of town will stop and take notice, and they will tell their friends who will maybe pass it on to their friends.

Such is the power of the Internet, where stories can go viral simply by folks taking a moment to post the link or pass along an email and suddenly more eyeballs take in something on their computer screen or smartphone than will see the same story on network television later that night or in print the next morning.

In 1986 soon after the Challenger disaster, Professor Ziff had as guest speaker the editor of the Concord Monitor, Christa McAuliffe's hometown newspaper. I asked him what he would have done if he absolutely knew beyond a shadow of a doubt the Challenger would explode that morning but had no corroboration. He looked me directly in the eye and said (with his voice somewhat trembling) he would have done "Anything--absolutely anything--to get the word out, including standing in town center naked with a warning tattooed to my butt."

A page one story or editorial may also have done the trick, and at the time he was in a position to make that happen (probably over the objection of his managing editor or publisher if he only had once source). I got the impression he almost felt guilty.

We are hearing only now of all the economic shortcuts and chances BP took with their Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded killing 11 workers and perhaps forever staining the environment. Only now! Where was the investigative media spotlight teams a few months ago when it could have made a difference?

Yes, Twitter and Facebook garner fawning media attention for number of users and the ability to instantaneously transmit thought (much of it mindless); and it's safe to say some of those who died on the oil platform had an account with one or the other.

But is it their job to blow the whistle on safety shortcomings when it could easily cost them a very lucrative job? Perhaps, and considering they are now dead, a better choice indeed. But would the old guard mainstream media, who's supposed to act as watchdog, have paid attention--especially when Big Oil companies are lucrative advertisers?

Give voice to the voiceless. Stand up to the 'Powers that Be'. Seek the truth knowing full well that rarely is the truth pretty or easy to come by. And do so proudly by signing your name.

I wish the mainstream media would embrace the Internet rather than curse it. It has been over 15 years now and they still don't appreciate it. Print media rely on BIG expensive presses that "go to bed" after putting out a daily edition. The Internet is always on, with a publish button simply a click away. A blessing and a curse.

The wisdom of the masses is now infinitely easier to tap into as anyone with expertise, knowledge or an eyewitness account can instantly add to a story..or Anonymous trolls can ruin it for everyone by posting malevolent drivel.

And while the First Amendment allows for a lot of things, propriety and good taste can still be maintained. As William Woo pointed out, wearing a jacket emblazoned with "F_ck the draft" in a public place is legal, but may not be tolerated at Sunday family dinner.

The rules of Journalism have not changed, only the method of presentation. "The trick in effective change," according to Woo, "learning what from the past should be retained and what should be replaced." Or as Thomas Jefferson pointed out, "A little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing."

Behind every print byline or website posting sits a human being trying to have an impact on other human beings. Words and good writing are still of paramount importance. Principles will always matter.

Consonance and Dissonance

So if I were--God forbid--the editor of the esteemed Amherst Bulletin, I would have been a tad more, errr, snarky with my Page One layout.

I loved the main above-the-fold top story placement for "ACLU backs 'official' blogs" as well as the almost equal placement (folks read left to right) of A-Rods rant about his brief tenure as highest paid Superintendent in history. Hey, at least he did not blame the blogosphere this time.

But the just below-the-fold, "Amherst Boycotts Arizona" contiguous with Amherst Regional High School baseball pitching phenom Kevin Ziomek getting drafted by the ARIZONA Diamondbacks where the Bully purposely left Arizona out of the headline "Ziomek drafted by Diamondbacks" is what I'm really talking about.

Oh well, I guess the diffident Amherst Bulletin doesn't want to piss off the Amherst powers that be.

Coming Full Circle

My 'Journalism Ethics' course just started, # three-of-five required for a Certificate of Journalism. I'm reminded of my first J course taken on campus 28 years ago, 'Newswriting and Reporting'--where our initial in-class assignment, tapped out on electric typewriters, was to compose your own obituary. Not much to say at age 27.

The Amherst Athletic Club, my life for all these years since, is now dead. And no, it's not a planned or even at this point well thought out process. I had planned to close the Club--but not until 1/30/2012, our 30th anniversary.

The last year of business would have been fun, hopefully with numerous former members returning for a "going away workout" and casual remembrances of our youth.

The last few years have been far from fun. Three years ago we were the lowest priced club in the Valley. Last year we looked downright expensive compared to Planet Fitness at a predatory $9.95 month. And the collateral damage was even worse, as other full service clubs lowered their prices to compete.

And of course, Umass opened the $50 million Recreation Center (I affectionately dubbed 'The Deathstar') free to Umass undergrads and fairly cheap to join for employees or alumni, a demographic category that probably encompasses about half the population of Amherst.

But the Martial Arts will continue at this location...retreating back to our roots, as that is how we debuted at 'The Dead Mall' back in 1982. And the new 'Karate Kid' remake will certainly boost the instruction school industry as it did back in 1984.

Like the typical disgraced politician I could always invoke the "wants-to-spend-more-time-with-the-family" spin, and that would not be untrue. Since the coming of daughter #2, Jada, my physical involvement at the Club lessened rather dramatically. Plus my wife's professional travels to Asia are increasing; we've decided never to part for more than three weeks, so now the entire family goes.

What the Hell, there's always my first love, journalism--and isn't that a wide open field for employment these days? (Yes, sarcasm needs a special font.)

The Bully reports

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